


One Look Before I Go

by AxHopkins



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: During Battle Ground, F/M, If Jim won't tell us what Harry's soul looks like I will, POV Karrin Murphy, Soulgaze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:20:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28954860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxHopkins/pseuds/AxHopkins
Summary: In all the years they've known each other, Harry Dresden has never soulgazed Murphy. That changes tonight.
Relationships: Harry Dresden/Karrin Murphy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	One Look Before I Go

It didn't hurt as much as it ought to.

  
But I can feel how much blood I'm losing, and it's too much.

  
Chicago was dark anyway tonight, but what little light the fires gave is getting even darker.

  
In books, they always talk about feeling cold. I don't feel cold. I think those nerves must have gone out by now.

  
Harry.

  
"Karrin, I'm here. Help i—," and the rest fades into the hush of wind.

  
I cough. Pain like a shout far off.

  
That doesn't matter. Only this matters.

  
"Harry."

  
I could say that name forever.

  
His lips move. _I'm here,_ I think he says.

  
I know, I know. I was only ever afraid of you not being here when it happened.

  
And here you are.

  
_No, no, no, Karrin? Come on, Karrin._

  
Come on, Harry. Is that how we've lived our lives?

  
The breath isn't easy to catch now.

  
"Not from you. I like Murph from you."

  
_Okay,_ and the pain on his face tears at me, _Murph._

  
His hurt hurts me. I can only feel my hand like a whisper, but I manage to reach his.

  
He's not avoiding my eyes now. Not hiding his soul like he always did, even at his most intimate. I know he's afraid of what people see. 

  
This breath is the last. Better make it count.

  
"Harry, I lov—"

  
And the soulgaze begins.

  
Harry is a starborn. He has more metaphysical weight than he even understands yet. Marcone once told me Harry is the same class of being as the King of the Black Court. It's not an accident that he's the strongest wizard of his age. It was written in his horoscope when he was born.

  
That much power, and a choice. He chooses what side to throw in with.

  
And that's what I see before me. Two Harrys overlaid like two slides in front of a projector. So this is what drained the blood out of the faces of everyone he gazed with.

  
Harry thrown in with the Outsiders. He looks wrong. Thinner than he ought to be, too tall, eyes full of the madness of vast astronomical distances and unimaginable atmospheres of pressure. No aura of darkness, no heavy shadows. Just an oppressive _weight,_ weight like the pressure of all the oceans, the deep with tentacles and eyes and mouths, drowned with dread Cthulhu.

  
Tearing through everyone that ever wronged him, and then turning on what's left.

  
Harry king over an empty night, nothing but horror and heat-death and Outsiders.

  
No wonder everyone who looked into those eyes looked scared enough to run forever.

  
They didn't know Harry like I do. 

  
That one didn't matter. That man was only ever an academic possibility. As long as Harry was Harry, that man would never be.

  
I look at the other Harry, the real Harry, blessed and beloved Harry.

  
A man. Ordinary looking, if you ignore how freakishly tall he is. And that silly coat. He's hurt so badly, somehow there are more scars on his soul than there are on his body. He stands steady, standing between the evil and the innocent, a wolf that chose to guard the sheep and became a sheepdog. How many times have I seen him stand just this way, in front of plant monsters and bridge trolls, demon lords and faerie queens?

  
In the sky I see the star he was born under. For just that second, the sun didn't stand in any of the normal signs, but in the house of this star. It doesn't appear on any modern astrological charts, but they knew it long ago in Persia. Some of their wisest went to see the king born under that sign. And that king sent the sign again, for the birth of another.

  
I can only see the real Harry now, that shade of what he could have, but never would have, been is faded away. I don't think I've ever loved him more than I do right now. If I could be angry with him for hiding this from me, I would be, but I just can't manage it. I know him now like I knew him already, but I've seen it now, no mistakes, no misconstrued intentions, no mistaking hope for fact. Plain as anything, the man I love.

  
I go to him, and I hold him, and it feels like forever.

  
The light from the star has been getting steadily brighter, and now even with my closed eyes buried in Harry's chest, I can see it. I don't want to let him go, and I never will, but I lean to my left and look past him.

  
Behind him I see another figure. The light is so intense it seems like I should be burning, but I can look straight into it. The light isn't coming from the star anymore, it's coming from this man. It's difficult to see. Even though the light doesn't hurt my eyes, something about it is just... hard to comprehend. I can't tell if the man is standing on a hill, or on a throne. 

  
I look closer at the man, and I see a Lamb, slain but standing, and I hear the voice of one of the elders saying "Behold, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah has conquered."

  
And just like that, the soulgaze is over. I'm laying on my back gun-shot and my dying breath runs out before I finish my last words. 

  
I think he understood anyway.

* * *

  
  
Harry, hands shaking, manages to start chest compressions. He's so distraught that he can't keep a rhythm. Even if there was a chance he could bring me back, he couldn't manage it. He's crying too hard to get a proper breath. I try to hold him, stop him, tell him not to waste his time. You've got a city to save. My hands pass through his like he's made of cloud.

  
Butters does it for me.

  
Beside me a man clears his throat. I look, and he stands out like a mountain in mist. All of Chicago looks insubstantial next to the two of us. He's a tall man (almost as tall as Harry) in Bronze Age scale armor. The Einherjaren had a few sets, and this looks somehow older yet younger. He's not terribly handsome, but the set of his jaw is strong, and his eyes are bright. Searching eyes, soldier's eyes.

  
He smiles, and holds out his hand.

  
"Ms. Murphy."

  
Most people would be a little nervous trading grips with a mysterious stranger on the borderland between life and death, but I figure the time for caution was about a minute ago. I shake his hand.

  
"Do I know you?"

  
He laughs.

  
"Yes, I think you do."

  
I remember a night battle, a sword in my hand, and a voice from my mouth that wasn't my own.

  
"Who—" I begin.

  
"Who comes to take the souls of the dead to judgement? Don't you remember?"

  
"Saint Michael?"

  
"At your service."

  
Another shadow in Chicago comes to stand by my body. She's a shade's shade more real than the rest. Michael gives her a friendly salute.

  
"We'll go and do a little Book of Life paperwork and then, if you like, you can go along with her and work for Vadderung a while."

  
He leads me down the street into the fog that is Chicago.

  
"Isn't, uh, where we're going, and Vadderung's place, separate? I didn't think you could do both."

  
The street starts to look less and less like the city I've spent my life in. The surroundings fade from fog to light.

  
"Please," he laughs. "Some of the saints could bilocate even on Earth. This is nothing. Besides, it's not as though this is a permanent assignment. Valhalla itself is only for this age. Is it not written," he says, in a voice a little purposely dramatic, "'And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth was gone'?"

  
This conversation runs in the back of my head as I'm occupied with the memory of holding Harry's soul in my arms. My death was too much for him just now, imagine what it'll be like in a few days, when he's not half out of his head on adrenaline and Winter. It almost destroyed me when we thought he was dead, and the two of us had only just confessed to each other. Now, with all our time together?

  
"What about Harry? He barely recovered after Susan, now this. I don't know if he'll survive it."

  
He looks down at me, and his piercing soldier's eyes glitter with the divine pity and love.

  
"'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.'"

  
When I can get a message through, that's the one.


End file.
